1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to the technology that controls an electro-optic device in which an image can be written by voltage application multiple times.
2. Related Art
Display devices such as electrophoretic display devices may perform each set of rewriting using plural frames. Such rewriting operation is performed when the display element requires a relatively long time to change its display state (i.e., the gray level). When such rewriting is performed, the display element cannot begin the following rewriting unless one set of rewriting is completed (in other words, unless the time for the plural frames passes).
Japanese Laid-open Patent Application 2009-251615 (Patent Document 1) describes a technology to rewrite an image in the unit of a partial area by performing pipeline processing in a display device such as an electrophoretic display device. According to this technology, for an area where rewriting is not being executed, rewriting of that area can be started without depending on rewriting of other areas, and the time required for rewriting may be shortened, compared with the case where the entire image is rewritten.
In the case of the technology described in Patent Document 1, to rewrite plural areas in parallel, pipelines are necessary for the number of the areas. In other words, the number of areas that can be rewritten in parallel is limited by the number of pipelines in the technology described in Patent Document 1. Moreover, in the technology described in Patent Document 1, when a certain area to be rewritten and another area overlap each other, rewriting of the other area cannot be started until after the present rewriting of the area to be rewritten is completed.